“Because I’ve been on dialysis two or three times between kidney transplants, I have a lot of stents up here, so that wouldn’t have worked. So how lucky it was they have that now,” said Elms.

What’s also great about this tiny technological is there’s no surgical incision required and its battery operated and self-contained, which means no leads or wires needed to pace the heart.

“If you have a patient who is a candidate for this and who is also a candidate for single chamber pacing, then this is clearly advantageous, this is clearly the better device to have,” said Dr. Cherukuri.

Elms is the first patient to receive the world’s smallest pacemaker at Abrazo Arizona Heart Hospital.

If you think you might be a candidate, Dr. Cherikuri says, talk to your cardiologist and go from there.